Climate Change Media Seminar in Guwahati
Guwahati, November 22, 2008 – A media seminar for journalists on Climate Change Challenge and its relevance for the North-east was organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research(C-NES) and the Knight International Fellowships Program, on 21 and 22 November 2008 at the TERI Centre in Chachal Hengrabari.
The Seminar was attended by over 30 people including 18 journalists, both from the television and print media and journalism students. A Glossary of Climate Change jargons translated into Assamese was presented to the participants on the occasion.
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Resource persons included Dr. Dulal Goswami, Dr. Parimal Bhattacharya and Dr Barin Sarma of Guwahati University, Dr. Chandan Mahanta of IITGuwahati, Mr Sanjoy Hazarika, Columnist, Author and Managing Trustee of C-NES, Arul Louis, former News Editor of the Daily News, New York and Knight Fellow, Dipankar Saharia of TERI, Ms. Sanghamita Kalita, Deputy Global Economics Editor of the Wall Street Journal, New York and Mr. O P Pandey, CCF, Department of Forests.
Issues discussed included making scientific jargon easily understood by reporters for popular use, “Science, facts and realities”, “Impact of climate change on the North-east” and “Balancing development and the needs of climate change”.
Mr Hazarika said that the media had a key role to disseminate basic issues of climate change and make this knowledge and information available to the people. This was especially important because the north east was a “Biodiversity hot spot”. The livelihoods of millions of people were connected to the environment. The Knight International Fellow, Mr. Arul Louis spoke of the need to give environment issues a “human face”
The dangers associated with the absence of scientific study and information on the Brahmaputra for the region were highlighted by Prof Chandan Mahanta of IIT, Guwahati. He advocated the need to think of innovative solutions based on people friendly approaches. These could include adoption of heat and pest resistant crops and promotion of irrigation and water saving technology. Prof Barin Sama of the Department of Physics, speaking on “Popularizing science” said that this liberates the mind from oppressive fears and dogmas and in understanding basic uses.Dr Parimal Bhattacharjee of the Department of Zoology said that traditional institutions could be a good vehicle to deal with climate change. Dr Dulal Goswami said that he saw signs of the impact of climate change in the retreating Indian glaciers including those in the north east and the drying up of rivers, once full of water. According to OP Pandey, CCF, Department of Forest not considering “ecology as part of the economy” was the root of the problem.
Sanghamitra Kalita, the newly appointed Deputy Editor at the Wall Street Journel spoke of the importance of capturing the reader’s attention on issues related to climate change and the environment by presenting stories attractively with facts and giving it a human approach.
The” Climate Change” seminar for the media included a field trip to the TERI watershed area site at Khetri, Kamrup District.